


Memory and Desire, Stirring

by KDblack



Series: Dragon Ball Collection [1]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: F/M, Gen, can saiyans be codependent asking for a friend, future trunks takes after his father in that he is also not okay, gohan does not want to be a saiyan, half-alien pregnancies are weird and concerning, is Goku okay? who knows?, not Bulma, vague predatory creepiness, vegeta is definitely not okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:47:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21940672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDblack/pseuds/KDblack
Summary: Saiyans are human, except when they aren't.
Relationships: Bulma Briefs & Future Trunks Briefs, Bulma Briefs & Son Gohan, Bulma Briefs & Son Goku, Bulma Briefs/Vegeta
Series: Dragon Ball Collection [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696063
Comments: 105
Kudos: 198





	1. Goku

In retrospect, it should have been obvious from the beginning that Son Goku wasn't human. Not because of the strength or the tail. The eyes. When Bulma met him in the forest, the eyes were what stood out. Black, guileless, and starving, like a newborn predator – the eyes of something small, soft, and dangerous, wondering if she was food. Everything else could've passed for human, even the tail, but those eyes were something else.

Though really, even the tail was a bit much. Humans have been born with tails, but not like that. Little strips of flesh and skin. Hair, maybe, if they were lucky. Goku's tail had bones. It coiled behind him like a snake, waving absently through the air according to his mood. Once or twice, Bulma saw him using it to hold things while his arms were full. Mostly food. It was cute, so she laughed at him for it, and he pouted at her until she explained herself. Then she declared lunchtime over, gunned the throttle, and pretended she couldn't feel his eyes on her back as she drove.

He never scared her on purpose. As the years passed, Bulma grew increasingly certain that he had no idea he was scaring her at all. She certainly wasn't about to admit it. Her, the heir to Capsule Corp, seeker of the Dragon Balls, afraid of a small child? Nothing doing, even if said child could knock down Redwood trees with the slightest gesture of his hands. So she focused on his cluelessness, his adolescent gawkiness, the way he was utterly hopeless at every facet of modern life, and forgot the fear. Or maybe she forced herself to forget. At this point, it's hard to say. 

Decades later, when Goku stands head and shoulders above her, those hungry eyes will stay fixed on the cosmos. That feline stare won't have lingered consideringly on her since she was a teenager. If she grows up to be more honest, she might admit that it's a relief.

Bulma was never as surprised as she should've been to learn that Goku had accidentally killed his grandfather.


	2. Vegeta

Vegeta scared no one by accident. He'd told Bulma once that he could smell fear. She believed it. When he stalked through the house on silent feet, wreathed in unnameable, inhuman thoughts that brought a brutal smile to his thin lips, it was deliberate. Most things about him were. 

Under the hair, he was such a tiny thing. Five feet, two inches of raw might, simmering temper, and unpredictable rage. Just like Goku, he wasn't built tiny. Stretched out and ever-so-slightly disproportionate, the both of them. But where Goku stayed within the realm of plausibility until you realized his shrink-wrapped muscle wasn't made for show, Vegeta was something else entirely. Bulma had seen a lot of strange things over the years, many of them at the Tenkaichi Budokai, but she'd never seen a human his size pull off his build. In her species, little guys got stocky. Look at Kuririn. 

Despite the added muscle mass, Saiyans must be a more gracile species than humans. Vegeta somehow pulled off Goku's lankier build despite being like two thirds Goku's size. The result was simultaneously unremarkable and uncanny. Bulma had caught multiple Capsule Corp employees gawking at him while he trained, torn between admiration and some nebulous form of pattern-recognition which said 'hold on, something isn't right here.'

She couldn't blame them. She'd caught herself doing the same. Something in the flat panes of his face was just unfamiliar enough to send her thoughts into a tailspin whenever she lingered too long. His hair, when she touched it, was more like a porcupine's bristles. It didn't sting, but it was warm. She could feel his heartbeat through it.

But those tells, you'd only notice if you were up close. The real giveaway – the one that always stuck out in her head when she thought back to their first meeting – was, again, the eyes. Pitch black. Merciless. Eyes which contained nothing but hunger and territorial glee. If they were the window to the soul, then Vegeta didn't have one, but he'd be happy to relieve Bulma of hers. Vegeta scared no one by accident, so when he responded to her questions by baring his overlong canine teeth, he knew exactly how hard her heart was pounding.

The joke was on him in the end. As it turned out, Bulma was into that.


	3. Trunks

First trimester. It wasn't the nausea that made Bulma suspicious – her wild youth had left her very familiar with all the ways her stomach could rebel. The heightened sense of smell was odd, but again, she'd been hungover, sleep-deprived, and hyped up on stimulants for about half the time she'd been alive, so she chalked it up to side effects of something or another and used it to sniff out the best components for her current projects. Weird stuff happening to the senses just wasn't that weird for her. Mood swings, though? As much as _some people_ might like to say otherwise on live television, Bulma hadn't actually been diagnosed with bipolar and she barely ever resorted to violence when mad. These days. So when she found herself screaming, crying, and physically attacking inanimate objects for the cardinal sin of beeping at her, warning lights flipped on. 

Then the cravings hit, and it all became moot. Nothing like being caught by your parents in the freezer at 2 AM, shoveling raw meat into your gaping mouth, to make you agree to a medical exam. Bulma was fully expecting to learn she'd been infected with some kind of parasite on Namek. A lethal alien disease, maybe. She had her will half-written when the results came back.

 _Well,_ she thought as she stared at the tiny little shape wiggling around in her abdomen, _I wasn't exactly wrong._

Bulma's first executive decision as mother of a half-alien was to decide that unless she was actively dying, she would say nothing to the father. If she opened her mouth, she'd probably end up yelling at Vegeta about hybrid viability and odds of survival and _not using protection,_ and that would just set him off. Besides, there was no guarantee she'd be able to carry the fetus to term.

She had to try, though. For science. And okay, maybe the idea of a baby – all hers, no one else's – sent a bit of a flutter through her chest, but shhh. Nobody needed to hear that. 

Her parents were already picking out tiny shoes.

* * *

Second trimester. Everything hurt. Bulma had regrets. Whenever she entered the same room as Vegeta, he glared at her, nostrils flared wide, and waited, bristling with tension. He wanted her to talk about it so he could make a big show of rejecting her, or the baby, or both. She refused to give him the satisfaction, especially since she was too busy trying to will the brat into compliance. Human babies weren't supposed to get wiggly until the third trimester, but the tiny invader occupying her squishy tissues wouldn't stop _kicking her where it hurt._

“I hate this,” she rasped between episodes of vomiting.

Her mom patted her gently on the back and drew her hair back out of her face. “I know, honey. Want to hold my hand?”

“No,” Bulma said.

“Want to set off a small explosion, then?”

“Yes.”

The explosion was awesome, even when the kid started kicking her rhythmically in the stomach afterward. Bulma decided to interpret this as excitement on their part.

“You can blow shit up when you're born and not a moment sooner,” she told her midriff very seriously.

The baby kicked her again, harder, and went still.

Bulma sighed. “Oh my god, stop pouting. You're worse than your father.”

* * *

Third trimester. All the complications Bulma had been expecting from an alien pregnancy suddenly hit at once. Baby's first ki blast rebounded off her insides, scaring them both half to death. The ultrasounds started showing massive and presumably painful tail-related mutations, which culminated in the embryo ripping its own limb off while she was watching. That was fun. Also, the brat suddenly started doing a lot of very concentrated growth, which resulted in an emergency C-section because it was not physically possible for a human woman to give birth to a baby the size of a toddler. 

Bulma did not get knocked out for the operation because she was the foremost expert on Saiyan biology – not that that was saying much – and she had to be ready to yell at the doctor if they did something wrong. She was unhappy with this arrangement. So was the baby being removed. Seconds after the doctor reached their hand in, they yelped and stumbled back.

“It bit me!”

“Yeah,” Bulma said. “That sounds like something they'd do. Hurry up and get the little monster out before it bites me.”

“I'm bleeding!” the doctor continued, staring at their hand in horror.

“It's like two drops of blood! Put on another pair of gloves or something.”

They were staring at her in horror now. Bulma glared back, pointed at the numbed area of her swollen stomach she was carefully not looking at, and cleared her throat. The doctor put on another pair of gloves and got back to work. Six bites, one screaming fit, and entirely too much blood splatter later, Bulma was officially a mother.

Trunks was born with stubby infant limbs, a full head of lavender hair, and his eyes wide open. Bulma looked down at her new son as he ripped the rubbery top of his bottle to shreds with his very long, very sharp teeth and hoped she hadn't made a terrible mistake.

“You need to take after me,” she told him, running her fingers through the feathery strands rooted firmly in his head. It didn't feel like the stiff spikes of Vegeta's hair, but it didn't really feel like human hair either. “Promise. No stalking people in the hallways, no fixation on surpassing Goku, no killing my friends. The only things you are allowed to obsess over are machinery and your amazing good looks.”

Trunks narrowed his eyes, which were already focused directly on her face, and babbled at her. Then he frowned and babbled some more. After the third attempt, his entire face was scrunched up in disgust and he was making a serious attempt at sounding out different syllables. Her little genius.

Bulma grinned and leaned back against a sea of fluffy pillows. “That's what I like to hear.”


	4. Future Trunks

The other Trunks was such a gentle soul. Bulma overlooked a couple things on his first visit purely because of the way he presented himself: soft, shy, self-effacing. He spoke quietly and didn't seem to really know how to talk to people. It reminded her of Gohan before the Saiyans came. Hell, it reminded her of Goku back before things got out of hand. But where Gohan was tranquil like a pond and Goku ceaseless like the sea, this boy with the lavender hair and familiar cut-off jacket struck her as somehow deceptive. Not malicious – just a liar.

In hindsight, that should've tipped her off. But Bulma was riding high on adrenaline and the hope of seeing her idiot best friend again, and Trunks' eyes were the familiar kind of nervous – the kind which said _oh my god, why am I allowed to interact with other people,_ as opposed to the kind which said _please don't notice I'm about to stab you in the back._

She kept an eye on him regardless – there wasn't much she could do against a Super Saiyan, but she had a lot of stuff in her capsules. She could serve as a distraction, if nothing else. But Trunks never nudged a toe out of line, even while he glanced at her constantly. There was nothing predatory in those eyes. Just an odd distance and a certain bewildered confusion, as if he couldn't quite make sense of what he was seeing. Bulma kept her distance, too. They'd just met. Even if he had sliced and diced Frieza, she trusted him about as far as she trusted his fake, fake smile.

Then Goku was there, her own Trunks followed, and she had no time to dwell on the way a stranger had looked at her. Until he returned with fangs bared and eyes that burned like magma steaming up through fissures in the earth.

The thing about Saiyans was that they were dangerous and proud, and it showed. The other Trunks, the one they dubbed 'Future' before anyone but Piccolo knew what was going on? He had no pride. Nothing to cling to but sheer bitter stubbornness. When Bulma saw him fighting the Androids – fighting Cell – she saw a cornered animal lashing out in every direction. He'd gnaw off his own limbs in the name of a victory he didn't believe in. If she let herself zone out, she could almost see how he'd been reborn in gold, blood in his teeth, screaming his heart out into the rain.

Saiyan eyes were black for a reason. With that bright splash of colour, it was impossible to miss the terror-fury-resignation in Trunks' eyes as he fought. Even when he demanded the group fight like a team, his gaze betrayed how scared and hollow the words were. His bravado was cut from the same cloth as his awkward kindness. 

That smile wasn't a lie, she realized. It was a threat display. The last scrap of armour left for a boy with precious little to lose. 

He was such a gentle soul. Before he had even left, Bulma was resolved to spoil the son in her arms rotten. Anything to make sure her baby never smiled meekly while choking back a rage that could shatter the earth.


	5. Gohan

Gohan changed after Goku... went away. Bulma wasn't willing to say the 'd' word. Or maybe she just wasn't ready. So she took her anger, grief, and the ugly little twist that felt too much like guilt, and she threw them into aggressively taking care of everything in her reach. That meant Capsule Corp, her parents, Scratch, Trunks, Vegeta whenever he stood still long enough, Kuririn and 18 – 17 was still firmly off the grid, and it drove 18 and Bulma both nuts to not know how he'd ended up. Tenshinhan, Chiaotzu, and Yamcha were more distant and thus harder to hover around, but Bulma managed it by paying off the debts for their farm and school. She even cleared up Muten Roshi's mounting bar tab, which had gone from reasonable to astronomical in a suspiciously short period of time. It was all she could do, so she did it, fiercely and without restraint. 

Things were different with Goku's family. Chi-Chi took a month off from their usual visits to recover. Then she began turning up again, once a week like clockwork, back straight and eyes dry. She cried sometimes in Bulma or her mom's shoulder, wailing in a voice like a titan, but never when anyone else could see. Including her son. So Bulma and her mom traded off Gohan duty, one of them distracting the kid while the other let Chi-Chi collapse into their arms.

Except Gohan wasn't distracted. Like Bulma said, Gohan changed after Goku went away. The external changes were so obvious they almost went unnoticed; little Gohan had been through so many growth spurts it hardly surprised anyone to see him standing like a miniature body-builder, muscles cut like a marble statue. His cheekbones were sharp enough to cut yourself on. It wouldn't be possible for a human child to look like that at 11, but Gohan didn't seem to be showing any signs of dehydration or long-term muscle damage, so Bulma threw her arms up and declared it to be weird alien bullshit. And Gohan, who once would've found that fascinating and asked a million questions, lowered his head in silence.

“Aunt Bulma,” he said after a moment, “can you help me cut my hair?”

Bulma blinked at him, caught mid-rant. “Well, sure. I don't think you need one yet, though.”

He smiled up at her, weak and tremulous, all his tiny little fangs covered. “Please. I just – I need a change.”

There were plenty of things Bulma could've said to that. But she thought of the empty place in the Son family, in the house, in her heart, and kept her mouth shut. Instead, she took out some of the vibroblades she'd made for Trunks and spent the next several hours carefully sawing through Gohan's messy spikes. His hair was thicker than Trunks', almost quill-like. The length was more like Vegeta's, but the weight of it felt like Goku's had.

Neither Saiyan was ever happy to let Bulma touch their hair – even Trunks would fight and hiss if she touched it wrong – but Gohan held himself utterly still through the whole process, even when his fists clenched white at his sides. Like he was trying to prove something to himself. Or holding himself to a promise.

At the end, he ran his fingers through the shorn-off ends and nodded to himself. There was something tired in the way he held his shoulders. Tired, but free. “Thanks.”

“I can teach you to use these,” Bulma said, watching the play of grief over features that weren't quite human. “Y'know, in the name of self-sufficiency.”

He looked at her suspiciously. “Are people supposed to cut their own hair?”

“Well, I don't.” Obviously. “But martial artists tend to. Yamcha did, when we were dating. I'm pretty sure Tenshinhan does now.”

“I see.” He fell quiet for a second, worrying one lip between teeth just slightly too long. When he realized what he was doing, he stopped. “I'd like that.”

“Yeah,” Bulma said. “Thought you might.”

She spent the next seven years with Goten underfoot. Gohan joined in off and on, always with his hair cropped short, and the two of them drove her absolutely batty. Only one of them asked questions about Saiyans. The other had cut that path off for himself long ago. 

Bulma couldn't blame him. But she could grieve for the wide-eyed boy who wanted to be just like his daddy when he grew up. It was all she could do, so she did it, fiercely and without restraint. She was sure Goku, wherever he was, would appreciate the company.


	6. Goten

Goten is a social animal. It throws Bulma off more than it should. His father vanishes into the forest for years at a time, his older brother is the shyest planet-buster she's ever met, and Vegeta – the less said about Vegeta, the better. Trunks sits in an ambiguous in-between spot, because while the teenager who came back from the future was terribly sweet, the one she spent the last seven years raising is a little hellion with a grand total of one real friend. That friend is Goten, who basically lives at Capsule Corp. Which is probably why Bulma even noticed something was up with Goten in the first place.

Over the years, Bulma's come to a realization: Saiyans, as a species or as a people, are adaptable. Whether it's biological, cultural, or some mix of the two – Bulma's betting on option number three – they're built flexible. Things that would drive a human to despair and helplessness will only push a Saiyan to fight harder. Anything which would prove a serious obstacle to humans won't even register. The exception, she's coming to believe, is loneliness.

Not for Goku, obviously, because Goku is an outlier and should not be counted. She can't believe he was her only sample for years. Her data must be so skewed. Ugh.

The point is, Bulma has spent over a decade under the impression that nothing short of a full-on apocalyptic scenario or major organ failure could dent a Saiyan's sense of well-being. Clearly, she was wrong, because Goten's ever-present smile is gone without a trace, and if he hangs onto Trunks any tighter her son is going to pop. “Kiddo, you can't stay over another night. Your mom wants you back by seven.”

“No!” Goten wails, the way he only ever does when he thinks Chi-Chi is safely out of earshot. “I wanna stay!”

“Tough. You already stayed over two nights. That's pushing your mom's limits already.” Chi-Chi likes to keep her boys where she can see them. And no wonder.

“Why can't he stay?” Trunks asks, his voice muffled where Goten is pressing their cheeks together. She's amazed her little brat is putting up with this kind of treatment. But then, Trunks has always had a soft spot in the exact size and shape of Goten.

“Because his mom worries about him.”

Blue eyes narrow. “You worry about me, but you let me do stuff.”

“Excuse you,” Bulma snaps. “I have never worried about anything in my life. Ever.”

“Last week I crawled under your hydraulic press to look at the pistons,” he rattles off immediately. “You just about blew a fuse yelling.”

“I thought you were gonna break it!” Specifically, his fragile baby spine.

“You were worried!” her son crows, and ugh, Bulma's fallen into his trap, hasn't she. Goten's smiling again, a wet and wobbly thing, and that alone is enough to prod her clumsy maternal instincts to life. Saiyans don't cry often. She suspects it doesn't mean the same thing to them as it does to humans. 

How many times has Bulma caught her Saiyan friends in tears? Vegeta cried when he was literally dying. Gohan used to cry a lot but he hasn't sobbed once since the Cell Games. Future Trunks, her tragic not-son, didn't even cry when he told Cell to kill him. Goku...

To her knowledge, Goku's only cried three times in his life – when he met Grandpa Gohan again, when Kuririn died for the first time, and when he tore through King Piccolo's gut. Seeing Goten, who looks exactly like his father used to, in tears over something as small as being separated from his best friend... it rubs Bulma the wrong way.

Maybe this isn't just ordinary childish clinginess. Maybe Goten needs something he's only getting from Trunks. Maybe she and Chi-Chi have been going about this all wrong. It's hard to make solid statements based on a sample size of what, six living individuals?

Bulma sighs and rakes a hand through her loose hair. “Fine. I'll call Chi-Chi. But don't be shocked if she storms over here to pick you up, Goten.”

Goten nods frantically, his arms closing even tighter. And Trunks, her angry, opinionated little brat, who's been breaking and remodeling bits of the house since he could walk, shuts up and takes it. Even when Goten's sharp little nails sink deep into his skin. He just walks off, already talking about something else, and Goten holds onto him like a lifeline. She's never seen a Saiyan that outwardly vulnerable. Even baby Gohan didn't hang on to his dad that tightly. Like if his grip relaxed for a moment, the whole world would fall away.

Yeah, Bulma decides, definitely something worth investigating there.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Memory and Desire, Stirring](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28550226) by [GoLBPodfics (GodOfLaundryBaskets)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GodOfLaundryBaskets/pseuds/GoLBPodfics)




End file.
